OXEN OF THE SUN
"Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come from Mr Moore's the writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said," (U14. 493)
St. Swithin was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. His feast day is July 15. He is the patron saint of rain: according to tradition, if it rains on Saint Swithin's bridge (Winchester) on his feast day, it will continue for forty days.
